By: Gary D. Barnett
“Blind pupils. — As long as a man knows very well the strength and weaknesses of his teaching, his art, his religion, its power is still slight. The pupil and apostle who, blinded by the authority of the master and by the piety he feels toward him, pays no attention to the weaknesses of a teaching, a religion, and soon usually has for that reason more power than the master. The influence of a man has never yet grown great without his blind pupils. To help a perception to achieve victory often means merely to unite it with stupidity so intimately that the weight of the latter also enforces the victory of the former.”
From Nietzsche’s Human, all too Human, s.122,R.J. Hollingdale transl.
This will simply be an exercise in philosophical argument, meant only to awaken the minds of the weak who blindly follow any preconceived method of control and power of one man, or one entity, over another. I think it vital to seek the courage to think critically, and to always question. Without this attitude, one’s entire existence is tainted, as psychologically blocking off the mind in order to accept what are labeled as societal or religious norms, can only cloud the judgement of sanity. Many consider, due to extreme brainwashing, that challenging doctrine indicates some sort of blasphemy, but would not a legitimate ‘god’ welcome all questions due to his confidence in his supreme position; not with jealously or contempt, but regard such curiosity as a sign of intelligence and respect? Which position is that of ‘your’ god?
For all those who are blind to inquisition, who have accepted that they have unquestionable knowledge of all life and death, who ‘believe’ that any interrogation of predetermined dogma is unacceptable, and who rely only on ‘faith’ without fully substantiated evidence, or any evidence for that matter, you might want to stop reading here. I accepted long ago that I know nothing of all there is to know. In fact, no man knows all there is to know, or even more than an infinitesimal amount of actual knowledge. Given this fact, and that each of us is individually unique, why would critical inquiry ever cease?
Seeking knowledge is an act of intelligence and courage, just as not seeking knowledge is an act of cowardice. This is not to say that any should or ever will be able to understand the meaning of life, but searching for truth in a world consumed by confusion, pain, suffering, and turmoil, is a noble effort of man. For this reason, let us all continue to search for truth in order to accept reality, instead of relying on perceived conjecture and lies.
Ah, the basis of rule; where did it come from, and why has it sustained its constant and perpetual failure to bring about anything of value to the human condition? In fact, it could easily be argued, that rule has been nothing if not the catalyst responsible for the total devastation of humanity due to the arrogance of that rule which has led to the master/slave paradigm of existence. This of course, is the essence of any ruling class, any secondary political class of pawns, and any who choose to enforce the bogus political ‘laws.’ It is also the essence of religion, so it is no wonder that these two ‘institutions’ work hand in hand to gain great power and control over the masses of humanity.
Given our circumstances and history going back to ancient times, I would posit that all beginnings of rule are steeped in original belief systems and religion. Worship and reverence of authority had to be created in the minds of the many in the very beginning, in order to establish the ideology of rule so as to concentrate power in the hands of the few. In other words, the system of authoritative domination needed to be not only established early, but held and sustained at any cost to guarantee submissive and obedient followers ………
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